Taylor Swift vs Shakespeare: A Real College Course

A new English course at the University of Texas at Austin will study the greats of Western literature:  Shakespeare, Keats, Frost, and Swift.  No, not Jonathan Swift . . . TAYLOR Swift.

taylor swift
(Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS)

The class is called “The Taylor Swift Songbook”, and professor Elizabeth Scala says students will study Taylor’s lyrics alongside the classics, and be asked to, “analyze and contextualize common practices and problems across the centuries.”

She hopes to show the kids how Taylor, “draws on richer literary traditions in her songwriting, both topically but also formally in terms of how she uses references, metaphors, and clever manipulations of words.”

Required materials for the class include Taylor’s last four albums, but something tells me anyone enrolling in this class already has them memorized.